Australian grain giant GrainCorp opens trading office in Ukraine

KIEV, July 27 (Reuters) - Australian grain giant GrainCorp has opened a trading office in Ukraine, the company said on Friday.

A new firm, GrainCorp Ukraine Ltd, was registered on May 14 and plans to trade agricultural raw materials, grain, seeds, and animal feed.

Earlier this year GrainCorp, a leading international agribusiness based in Sydney, said it expected to be present in Ukraine for the 2018 new crop and that an initial asset-light Ukraine presence was being established.

“Ukraine is at the centre of a globally important grain production region. It has large and growing production, high quality, and improving yields as technology and processes evolve,” the company quoted GrainCorp European Trading Director Carsten Højland as saying.

“It is important that GrainCorp becomes a participant in this region and we are very excited to make this positive step.”

Ukraine, among the leading global grain producers and exporters, plans to harvest at least 60 million tonnes of grain this year. It harvested 61.3 million tonnes of grain in 2017 and exported 39.4 million tonnes in the 2017/18 season. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)